Happily After All
by Brightly75
Summary: Crossover with HP. Pansy tells the unlikely story of her and Faith.


Title: Happily After All

Author: Chosentwo4381

Email: chosentwo4381@yahoo.com

Rating: PG-13, just because of girl/girl kissage and the fact that Faith has a potty mouth

Fandom: HP/Buffy crossover

Pairing: Faith/Pansy, with mentions of mostly unrequited others

Author's Notes: Started before the end of S7 and before OotP even had a release date. Definitely futuristic AU, so no real spoilers. Also, my usual beta is off corrupting the young as a counselor at church camp, so this might have errors. I apologize for those.

Disclaimer: Our Joss, who art in… wait that's not how it goes. And JKR is shaping up to be far meaner to the characters than I could ever be, so suffice to say I own them not. And I'm not sure where I read the 'If at first you don't succeed thing' but I don't own it either.

                We're grey, my slayer and I. No delusions of happily ever after mar our jaded cynicism. The way we figure, contentment is a better (definitely more attainable) goal to shoot for than fairy tale ending. Less effort for one thing, and a hell of a smaller let down if you fall short. Granted I don't ever fail. After all, "If at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried." Famous Slytherin motto.

                We met in the London streets; a vampire snuck up behind me and even though I didn't need saving, I didn't complain. We went to a nearby pub for a drink, and I felt the power oozing off of her in waves.

                "Witch?" I asked, despite the fact that it felt different.

                "Slayer," was the response.

                That intrigued me. The 'one girl in all the world with the strength et cetera' was a myth in our world. Nothing but a story told to small children, to assure them that vampires would not come for them in their sleep. While in her world, witches who used wands were a laughable cliché.  

                Over drinks, we talked about our worlds, but about nothing of substance concerning our selves, and we parted that night with no method of contacting one another, or any promises we couldn't keep.

                The next night we met at the same pub, both surprised to see the other. After scads of inane small talk, and even more alcohol, I asked what brought her across the pond. She told me a story about a beautiful girl who didn't care enough to see beyond tough words and a pair of leather pants. An anguished tale about pleas for attention run amok, and a last ditch effort to be worthy of notice before a bloody hard fought battle in which the beautiful girl died anyway.

                Then she asked why a pureblood witch would deign to troll muggle London. So I spun a story about a school and a boy I loved like a brother, and how he and I forsook everything we had been brought up to believe, for a knight in shining armor and a girl who thought she was just books and cleverness, but was so much more. I talked about a final battle where my 'brother' died, and expounded upon how beautiful the bookish girl looked as she married the knight.

                So it went. Each night we'd part with no promises or sweet words, and each evening would find us in the same booth at the same dirty pub near Covent Gardens. One night she doesn't ask some trifling question about the school, or wait for me to ask about America. 

                "Do you have a passport?" she blurts.

                "No, but I can transfigure one." I can. Draco's influence. He was a good Slytherin. She kissed me then. That shocked me (of course I didn't show it). I never expected that.

                "Go to Cleveland with me?" was the next question.

                "Whatever for?" Never go into anything blind. Another lesson learned from Draco.

                "So I can get my stuff, and tell Red that I'm never coming back unless the four horsemen of Armageddon are the new big bad."

                "Why aren't you going back?" Still digging for facts.

                "Because the hellmouth there is closed. Buffy is dead. And everything in the goddamn town reminds me of shit I'd rather forget. Between the house where we all lived, the club where we kissed for the first and only time, to the streets where we patrolled night after night, I can't go anywhere without wanting to cry, and crying makes me feel weak. I can't afford weakness.

                "Why me?" Probably the most important question of the lot, and the last time I'd ever ask it.

                "Because for the first time in a long time I feel something not tied up in obligation or pain, and you did that."

                I nodded, and kissed her, before transfiguring a long forgotten napkin bearing a scrawled telephone number from some nameless person into a British passport.

                Years later in a small flat in a small city named Lucerne in Switzerland, we lay in bed together. In the soft predawn twilight she asked why I came with her.

                I didn't have to think before I answered.

                "We're kindred. Two souls raised worlds apart in the school of unfulfilled expectations and stoicism in the face of grief, who found each other, and help each other forget, just a little."

                She nodded, and closed her eyes. I watched her as she drifted off to sleep, and kissing her forehead, I joined her in dreams.


End file.
